


Snap Shots

by PenguinZero



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 10:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8887951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinZero/pseuds/PenguinZero
Summary: Three people think they understand Mukuro Ikusaba.  She's sure that two of them are correct.  So why is it that she finds the third so oddly compelling?





	1. Shell – Junko Enoshima

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hawkflight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkflight/gifts).



If anybody saw me like this, I'm sure they would get entirely the wrong impression about me.

I jammed my elbow into the man's windpipe as he rushed me, a piece of rebar in hand. It dropped from limp fingers as he choked, trying to suck air through a half-crushed trachea, but my arm was already in motion, and I snatched it out of the air and swung it in a smooth arc directly into the jaw of the man ahead and to my right. As he fell, I used the momentum to drop and roll forward, taking myself out of the sights of the man by the lamppost with the semi-automatic pistol. Coming up in a crouch, I flung the rebar at him. He was already turning to sight on me again, but the sight of the flying metal made him pull back in a defensive flinch for a moment, which left him unprepared for me, launching myself towards him directly behind the rebar. He was bringing his pistol to bear even as the metal smacked into his thigh, but before he could get a bead on me, I had slammed into his knees and put one hand up to lever his wrist away from me. As he toppled under my momentum, I kept grappling with him, keeping him off-balance until his head cracked against the asphalt.

Seeing all that, I'm sure somebody could actually be fooled into thinking I was competent.

My little sister hadn't moved from where she was sitting on the edge of the fountain since the men had advanced into the small cobbletoned plaza outside our little hotel. Now she was laughing, clapping, and kicking her feet up. She wasn't really all that entertained, I knew. And she knew I knew. Her overdone show of enthusiasm was just her way of saying how incredibly dull I was.

The rebellion had broken out on the first week of our vacation. I hadn't known much about the geopolitics of Eastern Europe before we left, but I suspected she did. When the war broke out, she hadn't seemed surprised in the least. I'd started to suspect this was her idea of a gift to me. But I knew she'd never be that kind.

She hopped down from her perch as I pulled the man's knife from his belt sheath and held it to his throat, kneeling on his chest to hold him down. He was still dazed from the impact to his head, barely able even to meet my gaze, swearing under his breath in a language I didn't know.

"Ooh, wow, such impressive skills you guys have," she said chipperly, picking up the pistol and looking it over. "Taken down by an eleven-year-old girl! You guys are really earning those big mercenary bucks, y'know?"

My hands were rock-steady even as I cringed at my sister's dismissive description. But it was true. I wasn't really all that good. It had been the advantage of surprise that let me take down the three of them. None of them had been expecting a pair of eleven-year-old tourist girls to fight back, and I hadn't even been planning to until she had goaded them into trying to grab us. I was better than most girls my age, to be sure. I'd taken home trophies from three survival game contests, one of them the first place in a national sixteen-and-under event, but that was nothing compared to the experience a real soldier would have. If they'd reacted just a little quicker, or even one of them had been a bit farther away, I'd have been dead.

My little sister worked the slide on the pistol, ejecting a cartridge, getting used to the feel of the gun in her hands. She pointed it down at the man I was kneeling on, the only one of the three still in condition to fight. I could still hear distant gunfire and shouts echoing from other parts of the city, but the little plaza, tucked tight between quaint old buildings dating back centuries, was now still as a tomb.

The soldier had pulled himself together, fighting past the pain. His eyes met mine, then flicked up to my sister's. He looked straight past the gun, I noticed, to her eyes. I approved. You can't tell much of anything by watching a gun until it's too late. If you know what the shooter is thinking, you might have a fraction of a chance.

My sister kept the gun trained on him, waiting for him to do something, but he didn't bite. No threats, no begging, no negotiation. Even in the face of death, he was watching for an opening – and if it didn't come, he was going to die with dignity.

That probably didn't impress my sister. But she winked at him, and then turned the pistol to point at me for a moment, giving me an amazing thrill of terror, before finally turning and tossing it into the fountain. "Oh, do let him up, sister dear. It's terribly gauche to rub your victory in like that. I'm sure he won't hurt us now, will he?"

The man slowly nodded, with care not to press his neck into the blade any more. I stood up, and offered a hand to help him to his feet. Once he'd risen, I handed him back the knife, handle first, and he tucked it back into its sheath.

"Damn," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "You're something else, you know that? I know guys who've been in the business for ten years who couldn't pull off a takedown like that." I turned away slightly, unable to look at him. Seeing him fooled by my exterior just after my sister had reminded me of its falsehood was hard to bear.

He kneeled by his comrade who I'd elbowed in the throat, and poked him around the impact spot a few times. "You're fine," he said brusquely. "Nothing broken. Walk it off, man." The other soldier, still coughing and breathing raspily, gave him a gesture that I could only assume was obscene in this part of the world. Ignoring him, the lead soldier – likely the commander, I realized, based on the practiced way he was taking control of the scene – went to look at the one I'd struck in the jaw.

"This one's gonna need more work. You broke his jaw, girly. Hard to get that set properly in a war zone. He's out of commission until we can get him to a cheap medic."

The one with the broken jaw had been carrying a shoulder bag of some sort, which he'd dropped when I hit him. Now his commander pulled it open and took out some bandages, then shoved the bag under his subordinate's head to act as a pillow while he wrapped the bandages around his head to stabilize the jaw.

"Oh, no!" My sister clapped her hands to her cheeks. "Are you going to be out for vengeance? Should I start digging a grave for my poor, dear, doomed big sister?"

He barked out a short laugh. "We're professionals, girl. Unless you two are secret agents for the government we've been hired to take down, I think we can write this off as self-defense and let it lie at that. Nobody's going to be impressed if we kill a couple of little girls. And that goes double if we actually get ourselves killed this time." He yanked the bandages tight, to a burst of muffled curses from the injured man.

"Hmmm." She put one finger up to her chin in mock thoughtfulness. "It does seem like it's all her fault, though. Whatever can we do to make it up to you?" She gasped in a perfect parody of astonishment. "I know! I'll sell her to you."

This got an eyebrow raised. "You're selling us your sister?"

"She's a total military nut. I think it'd be good for her to see just how different the real thing is from all her posters and toy guns and totally-true-I-killed-a-hundred-men-behind-enemy-lines-with-only-a-toothbrush magazine stories. Put her out on the front lines and see how well she does." She shrugged. "And if she doesn't, I'm sure a bunch of big ugly guys without a whole lot of moral compunctions like you can think of some other things to do with a nubile young girl."

The commander barked out a laugh. "Little young for my tastes. Probably could get some of the guys to go for it, but then they'd stick it in anything that wriggles." He shook his head, and pulled the knife back out of its sheath, tossing it up in the air and catching it. "Look, fun's fun, but a battlefield's something else entirely. Go home, kids. Enjoy life. If you seriously thought you could get involved in what we're doing here..."

He tossed the knife lazily in my direction. He'd aimed it to land at my feet, scaring me without doing any harm, but his aim was slightly off, perhaps due to a mild concussion. It would have likely gone through my left foot. If I hadn't reacted.

I snapped out a kick, letting the thick sole of my boot take the edge of the blade. It bounced back, and I managed to control the angle well enough that it came flying back in the general direction of the commander. He recoiled as it spun past him and crashed, hilt-first, through one of the hotel's first floor windows.

I was worthless, but I wasn't totally incompetent.

"...I see."

He was looking at me with a more serious eye now. I could feel myself wilting under his gaze, all expression sliding off my face.

"Selling, eh?"

"Well, I can't exactly give her away for free, now, can I? But don't worry, I won't charge you any more than she's worth." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a little coin purse with a cartoon character on it.

"Oh? And how much is that?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. You got any juice?"

"...Juice," he said flatly, disbelievingly.

"I'm thirsty. And it's a long walk back up to our room. Four whole flights of stairs, can you believe it?"

He kept his eye fixed on her as he reached into the satchel he'd set up as a pillow for his injured subordinate. He pulled out several cans, one by one. Mostly beer, but a few soda, and then one apple juice. He lobbed it in her direction.

She caught the can, and then fished around in her little coin purse theatrically. "Sorry," she said. "I don't have enough change."

I felt my heart flutter as she said that. Worth less than a can of juice to her. 

She knew me so well.

The commander turned back to me. "Got a name, little girl?"

I started to reply, but my sister cut me off. "Oh, don't bother with her name. It's so disappointing to actually see someone give a name to a walking corpse." She poked me in the forehead. "I mean, that's all I really expect of a despairingly awful sister like you. You're probably going to get yourself shot in the head within half an hour. Or spend a few months getting horribly molested before dying of some awful disease you're going to catch.

"Besides, I'm thinking of picking a new name, anyway. There is nothing quite so boring as being stuck with a single name your entire life, which is why I shouldn't be surprised you never thought of changing yours." Her finger twisted back and forth, digging the nail into my forehead a little like a miniature drill. "I'm probably going to pick some sort of job where I can use a stage name, like actress or model or whatever, and wipe out my old name as much as I can. It'll make it harder to trace our history, at least a little."

Of course. She had plans. Even then, I knew. Or maybe not so much plans as ideas, a goal, a dream. A dream for a world with no hope in it, a world that would drive her to complete despair. I didn't know the details – even she might not have, yet – but I knew that secrecy would be a great help to her.

"I'm thinking of Enoyama, maybe. Kawashima. Junigaoka. Something like that. But don't try to copy me – it'd defeat the point, and be hopelessly boring of you anyway. You could probably just call yourself 'Corpse' for all I care – it really suits you!"

I nodded. It actually kind of did. There were so many words for corpses, cadavers, bodies, remains... Some of them could actually make rather nice names. I'd have to consider it. 

"Okay, whatever," the commander said, irritably. "Point is, corpse-girl, what's your angle here? She says she's selling you. Is this actually what you want to do, or is this just some kind of gag? You're amazingly good – I wouldn't even be thinking about this if you weren't – but if I'm gonna wake up one night to find you crying for home, or have to hunt you down after you run away, you're better off not even starting. Because that path leads to one thing only." He mimed a gun with his fingers, aiming at my head and then popping them back as if he'd shot me.

I barely even had to think about it. Certainly, living the life of a soldier spoke deeply to something in me, the idea of living in a war zone, my reflexes and wits the only way to survive, killing to live and knowing death always followed me. But that wasn't even a shadow of an influence on me. The things I wanted, the things I seemed to be good at – those were nothing more than a shell around nothingness. Meaningless and hollow, only good for putting up a front to other people.

But my sister wanted this. She wouldn't have engineered this whole incident if she didn't. Somehow, selling me to a mercenary group would make her despair more. And I loved her, and wanted her to feel all the despair she ever could.

"I want this more than anything in the world right now," I said. And it was true. It was the only thing that mattered.


	2. Blank – Izuru Kamukura

I didn't know how he'd slipped past my patrol. I'd left the observation room for only a few minutes while I made sure the entrances to my sister's secret bunker were still secured. When I returned, he was sitting in the chair I'd abandoned, watching the monitors that showed my sister at work with no more passion than if he'd been watching the weather report.

I forced myself to relax, re-sheathing the knife I'd drawn without conscious thought the moment I'd sensed there was someone unexpected in the room. He was on our side, inasmuch as you could say he was on any side at all.

His eyes flicked to me as I moved towards him, then flicked back to the monitors. I didn't even merit a word, or the slightest change in his expression.

I swallowed nervously. "How did you make it in here?" I asked lamely. It was a poor conversation starter – even I knew that – but I had to know, just in case it was a security hole someone else could exploit.

"No way you could follow," Izuru Kamukura said bluntly. "There is no security breach you need concern yourself with." Just like he'd read my mind.

Of course. I know Junko could always tell what I was thinking. And Kamukura was perhaps the only person in the world to have more skill at that – at anything – than my sister.

The question answered, he seemed to dismiss me from his mind. His gaze was, instead, fixed on the central monitor, which was showing a close-up of Chisa Yukizome's face. Her eyes were glazed, fixated on the bright lights I could see reflected in them, an unsteady smile on her face as she laughed weakly at the despair filling her heart.

"Did you come to see Junko?" I asked him, as I gingerly took the seat next to him. "She's going to be busy a little while longer. She has to reinforce the conditioning she's done because..."

"…because at her current level of expertise," he said, cutting me off, "even the knowledge she gained from the Super High School Level Animator and Super High School Level Neurologist is insufficient to achieve her aims alone. Exposure to only the memetic agent she crafted would cause an incomplete effect that might be reversed by exposure to individual factors that might inspire their 'better nature.' Personalized conditioning, playing on their individual weaknesses, is required to finalize the effect."

I felt very tight and small. Of course he knew what she was doing. He knew better than I did. Why had I even thought I could explain it to him?

On the screen, Junko's face slid into view from behind Yukizome, nuzzling up against her cheek as Junko whispered words of sweet poison into her ear. I saw Junko cup her chin, letting her long, sharp fingernails tickle to add a tactile component to what she was saying.

"She finished her work with Hanamura earlier," Kamukura said. "The least boring part was when he managed to talk himself into believing the only rational response to his fear and despair about his mother's illness was to kill her and use her in his cooking. Predictable, but seeing the exact reasoning she goaded him into was worth brief attention."

I felt a little queasy at that. Not because of what he'd described. I'd seen far worse atrocities in my time as a mercenary. I'd participated in some. And I knew Junko had inspired people to far worse over the years, even without brainwashing. But hearing him dismiss it so easily, as if it wasn't even worth consideration... There was something frightening about that.

Something familiar.

I knew the images Yukizome was watching, because I'd been there when Junko was editing the video together with frightening speed and intensity. It was a series of images of the two most important men in her life, Kyosuke Munakata and Juzo Sakakura. Images of them talking. Images of them laughing. Images of them close to each other in whatever way Junko had been able to find.

Kamukura touched a control, and the audio from the monitors came on again. The soundtrack of the video Yukizome was watching was muffled, but Junko's quiet words came through loud and clear.

"–handsome together, aren't they?" she whispered into Yukizome's ear. "They get along so well. The intrepid leader and his fierce right hand. The brooding, thoughtful one and the brave, passionate one. It's hard to get between a pair like that, isn't it?" She trailed her fingers down from Yukizome's chin, letting the points of her nails draw faint white paths down her throat, across her clavicle, coming to rest like a dagger over her heart. "Maybe you shouldn't even want to. Wouldn't you be a bad person if you were so selfish? Wouldn't you just be causing them both so much misery?"

I didn't know if there was any truth to what Junko was implying, of course. I'd seen, in passing, Junko's evidence that Sakakura might have a crush on Munakata, but that was all. Nothing about how strong it was or how it might be reciprocated or anything like that. But that didn't matter. Junko wasn't working with facts. She was working with the fears in Yukizome's heart, the despair she could breed there. On some level, the relationship Sakakura and Munakata had with each other weakened Yukizome's heart – and so it was the vulnerability Junko could use to break her heart wide open.

I was so proud of her for that.

"But you knew that already, didn't you," Junko said, switching around to Yukizome's other ear. "You already knew how much of an awful person you are..."

Her voice cut off abruptly. Kamukura had shut off the speakers once again.

"You don't want to hear any more?"

He flicked his gaze back to me. "I don't need to hear any more. I could repeat the entirety of what Enoshima is going to say already, and how Yukizome is going to react. Based on extrapolations from what I have heard, I can predict nearly all of how her next session, with Koizumi, will play out, and the one after that, with Nidai. It holds no interest for me any more."

"Oh. O-of course."

And yet he remained sitting there. Was it not as boring as he said it was? No, I doubted that was it. Perhaps it was more that there was nothing more interesting he could be doing. Standing up and walking away would be an effort that would change nothing for him, so why make it?

I wondered if I should try to remove him. I didn't want to, but would Junko want me to? I don't think she'd mind him watching, but I wasn't sure, and she had told me to make sure nobody got in. Did that include...?

"Don't," he said, flatly. Just the one word, without even looking at me, but it was enough. I cringed at the sound of it.

Because I knew he was better than me. It was a simple fact. As the Super High School Level Hope, he had talents as a soldier that eclipsed mine, and talents in dozens of combat-related fields that could supplement them in ways I couldn't hope to match. He didn't consider me a challenge. He didn't consider me a threat.

Really, he didn't consider me. At all.

I think that was the reason I was so drawn to him. The way he looked at me, the same way he looked at everything else. A way that told me he knew just how worthless, deep inside, I really was. The same way my sister looked at me.

Nobody else had such deep insight into me. Everyone else saw only the surface. They thought I was strong, brave, powerful. Just because I was a soldier. Just because I hid my feelings. Just because I've killed more men than most professionals twice my age. They respected me, or feared me, or hated me. Junko, though… Junko always knew. And was never afraid to tell me. She knew how weak I was, how worthless, how damaged and hollow I was. She gave voice to every feeling I'd ever had deep inside of me, and I loved her for it.

So how to describe how I felt about Kamukura? He thought even less of me than Junko did. She mocked and belittled me to make sure I never forgot my weaknesses and faults. He didn't think I was worth even that. She looked at me and saw something pathetic. He looked at me and saw nothing. Was that better or worse?

I didn't know. But as I sat staring at him, lit only by the flickering grey light of the monitors, I knew I would do almost anything for him. But he would never want anything of me.

Why did I think that was so perfect?


	3. Rebuttal – Makoto Naegi

Even at the end, they still didn't really know me.

We'd been working for weeks to convert the old main building into a secure shelter. After the riots and mass suicide of the Reserve Course students, and the seeming deaths of our upperclassmen in the process, and after the escalating tide of violence and destruction around the world, the administration had decided that our class, along with Headmaster Kirigiri, were to take shelter here until the chaos died down. Our skills could then be used to rebuild from the ruins.

They didn't know how my sister had subtly guided them to that conclusion from behind the scenes. They didn't know that Kazuichi Souda and several of the other believed-dead students had been helping Junko redesign and rebuild the fortifications, adding traps and secret passages and of course the robots Junko would be using to control the course of events once we were locked in. They didn't know a thing about the fact that they were locking the two original members of Super High School Level Despair in with their precious hope.

So it's no surprise that nobody, whether in our class or the school as a whole, had a chance of seeing the real me.

I'd sized up most of my classmates within hours of meeting them. Some would be threats if I had to face them directly. Others I could eliminate with ease. All of them saw only my outer shell. The stoic, deadly mercenary Mukuro Ikusaba, veteran of Fenrir, quiet and menacing. Some, such as Fujisaki and Yamada, reacted with fear, and tried to avoid me. Some, like Owada and Togami, attempted to assert their dominance. I'd sparred with Ogami; I'd seen flirtation attempts from Kuwada falter as I just looked at him. All of them showed some degree of respect for my skills and competence.

Not one of them treated me like I deserved. That made their blindness so obvious.

And when someone does not know their enemy, they have no hope to win. None of them were prepared for me; I was prepared for all of them.

"Ah, Mukuro!"

Except one.

Makoto Naegi, an apron over his Hope's Peak uniform, turned to me with a bright smile as I entered the kitchen carrying a stack of food crates. "Are those the last of them? Just set them down over there." He helped me unload the rations — the last of the food supplies that were meant to last us years, when supplemented by what we could grow in the garden upstairs.

"Oof!" He gasped as he tried to take one of the boxes out of my arms, staggering under the weight. "You carried all of these? You really are strong!"

I watched Makoto more than anyone, probably. Even more than I watched my sister. Because I didn't understand him. And a mysterious or misunderstood enemy is one who can surprise you. My analyses of him never made sense. He made friends easily, with a wide variety of different, seemingly incompatible people. He always offered help when someone was in trouble but never seemed to want much for himself. Even in the worst of times, he'd kept a smile – not a fake smile, to manipulate others, or a forced smile, to hide his sadness and fear. He freely admitted to how terrible the deaths and disasters made him feel, the terror and helplessness they instilled in him.

And yet he still smiled, from the heart.

As I set down the last of the boxes, Makoto turned back to where he had a large pot steaming on the stovetop. "I just finished making dinner. It's not much – just some stew and salad – but I figured it's a way I can chip in while we're all stuck in here, so I should start practicing while I can. Do you want some? We could sit together."

I felt a lump in the pit of my stomach. I didn't want to talk to him. On some level, I was telling myself, it would risk a breach of operational security. I might end up letting something slip that would reveal Junko's plans, or otherwise put him on alert. But that wasn't the real reason. In the year and a half since I'd arrived at Hope's Peak Academy, I'd never once sat down to eat a meal with anyone else. Not even Junko, for fear of giving away our relation. The last people I'd eaten with were the members of Fenris, before I'd eliminated them all to hide anything they knew of me. And I hadn't been any more at home among a bunch of crude, intense older men, reeking of sweat and cordite and alcohol, than I was among these teenagers.

But he was offering me food, and I'd learned never to waste food. And any excuse I could use to evade the offer would look terribly awkward and suspicious. I had to.

"...Okay."

We sat in the cafeteria, now completely renovated. It was now a bright and cheerful place, with more than enough seating for all of us.

"I guess we'd better get used to eating here," Makoto said as he set his bowl of stew down in front of him. "We won't have many other options for a while. But it's nice enough, isn't it?"

I nodded quietly. I'd seen members of the student council stalking and nearly killing each other in here, not so long ago, but there was no trace of it left. Makoto knew of the incident, of course, but it wasn't as intense in his mind, presumably. Best not to remind him of it.

"It's funny, but we haven't really talked much, have we?" he said. "I guess it's kind of my fault. I wanted to try to get to know everybody in the class, but you always just seemed so..." He hesitated, trying to find the right word. I already knew what he'd settle on.

Worthless. Irrelevant. Pathetic. Those were the words he'd use if he really knew me. But he saw only the surface, so he'd choose something else. Intimidating. Overwhelming. Scary.

"...so shy, really."

My eyes widened. What? What had he just said?

"I didn't want to push you into anything, so I wanted to let you have your space. I know it can be a little hard getting to know everyone in a place like this. I got a little more worried when we got through our whole first year and you still hadn't really opened up. But by then there was the Tragedy, and everything was going wrong, and everyone was so busy, and it wasn't really surprising you weren't able to make a connection with anybody..."

"I... had more important priorities. And I didn't feel like socializing with anyone was... important."

He nodded. "I know. You've really come through when it counts, after all." He smiled. "After all, you're a really kind person, deep down inside."

Again, I could barely hide my surprise. "W-why do you say that?"

He blinked, seemingly surprised at my surprise. "Why wouldn't I? You've done so much for everybody. Remember that time when Yasuhiro dragged me along to a meeting, and it turned out he'd promised he'd sell his organs to the Kuzuryuu clan to cover a debt he'd made, and he wanted me to cover half of that? They lost their patience while we were arguing about it, and they were going to beat us up, but we ran into you while we were on the run from them and you intimidated them into backing down and renegotiating the debt." He took a sip of tea. "You didn't have to do that. Nobody would have blamed you if you didn't want to stand up to a bunch of angry yakuza. But you saved us."

I remembered that. I'd been stalking Makoto, trying to judge his intentions and potential, and failing as usual. I'd only intervened because it was the Kuzuryuus. If our class had been dragged into stronger ties, positive or negative, with the clan's heir, who Junko had already been making plans to subvert at the time, it would have caused unnecessary complications. That was all. It hadn't been anything to do with my feelings.

"Or remember that time when Hifumi showed you the doujinshi he was working on, and you spent half an hour telling him how the various weapons he was drawing worked? You really helped him out on that one – he said ever since then, he's had so much more realism in his work."

I barely even remembered that incident. I hadn't really been as voluble as Makoto was saying, had I? I just remembered seeing some serious mistakes Yamada had made in the design and tactical use of the automatic rifles he'd been drawing, and being a little displeased. A soldier's weapon is important, and misunderstanding how it's used can be deadly. Take an automatic rifle into a close-quarters battle where a small sidearm is the more appropriate choice, and your life is forfeit. Had I said more than that? I couldn't remember.

"You care a lot about everybody, but you just have a hard time showing it, I think."

I looked at Makoto. I could feel the churning, complicated mess of confusion and anxiety and distress from being misunderstood twisting inside of me, along with any number of smaller, more fleeting emotions I couldn't quite catch. When that happens to me, I don't react like everybody else. All my attention focuses inwards, and bit by bit all my control over my face and positioning goes away, leaving what looks like a cool blank stare as my expression as I sit stiffly. 

"How can you tell?" Short, clipped words. I'm not capable of more than that when I'm this distressed.

"It's the way you watch everybody, I guess. It's not, like, the way you'd watch somebody if you were going to fight them or anything like that. I've seen Mondo when he's itching for a fight, and Sakura when she's in the mood to spar, and it's nothing like that. It's more like you're watching over us. You pay attention to what we're doing, and when any of us are in trouble, you're there for us."

He was wrong. He was most certainly wrong. All I'd been doing was keeping anything from interfering with Junko's plans. Nothing more. Certainly I watched my targets, and didn't let anything interfere with them. Wasn't that just what a soldier did?

"You always listen when any of us are talking about the things that interest us. And I can tell you remember, too. You don't usually speak up, but when you do, you always know why we're worried." He looked out at the glass-paned wall of the cafeteria, and the planters just behind it that would be the only hint of an 'outside' we'd see for a long while. "I mean, not that it's been hard to guess, lately..."

"The Tragedy."

He nodded. "It's funny, though. I know I really ought to be afraid of what's going to happen. The last few months have been really awful for everybody. But... I kind of feel like there's something that's going to keep us all safe."

"What's that?"

"Well... us." He smiled. "I mean, if there's any physical danger, we have you and Sakura and Mondo and Leon and Aoi. You're all strong enough to fight almost anything alone. All of you together... I don't think anything could stop you. And if there's anything we need to think our way out of, we have Kyoko and Byakuya and Celeste and Chihiro. If there's someone we need to talk with, Sayaka and Junko and Kiyotaka and even Yasuhiro are all really persuasive. Every one of our class has some way in which I feel like they could keep us safe."

"Even you?" The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them.

He laughed, a little embarrassed. "Well, I don't know about that. Maybe? I guess the only thing I have going for me is that I'm a little more optimistic than most people. Maybe that'd help keep us going if something goes wrong?" He poked his fork at a cherry tomato in what was left of his salad. "Other than that, I can't think of anything. Even my 'talent' isn't really one. I'm not really worth much in all of this, not like you are. But I still want to try."

I didn't know how to respond to that. He really thought that he was worth less than me? Me, of all people?

And I wouldn't get a chance to respond. With a bang, the cafeteria doors slammed open – kicked by Owada, his hands jammed in his pockets as he argued with Ishimaru. Probably, if the presence of Fujisaki behind them with tears in his eyes and making placating noises was any indicator, another of their perpetual disagreements about manliness.

"...the rules, Mondo! School uniform policy clearly states..."

"Aah, shaddup about your rules! Sick and tired of hearing you bellyaching about that every goddamn day! Look, dude feels more comfortable in a skirt, who the fuck cares? Hell, it takes more balls than I got for a guy to rock a dress like he does. You oughta be damn proud of the dude!" He glared over at where we were sitting. "Yo, Makoto! You done with dinner? I need something to chew on or I'm gonna be sick listening to this asshole complain!"

Makoto jumped up and hurried toward the kitchen, as Fujisaki tried to calm the argument down. Behind them, I could see the other students arriving, in twos and threes, and I decided this was the best time to retreat from what had become a very troubling conversation. As I slipped out the door past the new arrivals, I sensed two stares on me. Ludenberg – I was sure she'd seen that Makoto and I were sitting together, and her slight smile spoke volumes about what she thought must have been happening.

And Junko. I could read volumes into what her giant smirk means. How pathetic my socializing with Makoto must have looked to her. She was right, of course.

Though... Thinking on what Makoto had said, one thing disturbed me. He'd said how much I noticed about everyone. Things like, perhaps, Celestia's evaluation of me... Or the neverending manliness argument? I'd known that was coming even before I heard the words being spoken. I could even now imagine the words Fujisaki was saying, agreeing with Ishimaru's harsh judgment of his 'security blanket' and trying to convince Owada it was still a fault Fujisaki was too weak to overcome. Did I really know and care that much about...

No. No, it was just basic situational awareness for tactical purposes. That was all.

Still, if Makoto...

I forced myself to stop that thought in its tracks.

I knew there was no point to acting like Makoto was actually right about me. He didn't know me as well as he thought he did. He'd never realized that I was part of the Super High School Level Despair, or that Junko was. He didn't know that in just a few short weeks or months, depending on how Junko's planning went, he'd be at her mercy, trapped in whatever scheme she was devising to bring despair to the world.

If he thought I was shy, that was a misinterpretation. If he thought I had a good heart, he was even more wrong. I was a worthless nobody who was only good at one thing. I had no dreams in my life except to help my little sister feel despair. I couldn't empathize with other people. I'd never felt hope. I was helping to destroy the world for purely personal reasons.

There was no chance at all Makoto was right about me.

So why did something small in the back of my head keep coming back to 'if?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't able to give this as much time as I'd have liked. I'd planned to spend much of November working on it, but then, well... the election got me entirely out of the mood to write. I had to do this in a much shorter time frame than I'd expected.
> 
> Hopefully it still works pretty well, though. Mukuro's always been one of the characters in Dangan Ronpa that interests me the most, ever since she was revealed in the first game, and Dangan Ronpa IF just made her more intriguing to me. I hope I did her proper justice in this.
> 
> Merry Yuletide!


End file.
